title: Efficient method for controlling the spatial coherence of a laser.
abstract: An efficient method to tune the spatial coherence of a degenerate laser over a broad range with minimum variation in the total output power is presented. It is based on varying the diameter of a spatial filter inside the laser cavity. The number of lasing modes supported by the degenerate laser can be controlled from 1 to 320,000, with less than a 50% change in the total output power. We show that a degenerate laser designed for low spatial coherence can be used as an illumination source for speckle-free microscopy that is nine orders of magnitude brighter than conventional thermal light.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nixon
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Redding
authors.forename: A A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Friesem
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Davidson